Moon at Nine

by Deborah Ellis

  ‘You’ll have to wash the car again,’ Farrin said as the dust rose up around them like a fog.

  There was war damage along the side of the road – bombed out military trucks so thickly covered in dust that they almost looked like giant boulders.

  Farrin’s mother was born to privilege; her father was an important general in the Shah’s army, and they counted members of the royal family among their social acquaintances. As the revolution heated up, Farrin’s grandfather read the signs and fled the country with her grandmother. But they left her mother behind. Farrin’s mother had married someone they disapproved of, so they abandoned her to her fate.

  Farrin’s mother never let her father forget what she had given up for him.

  Farrin’s father had been a soldier on the military base where Farrin’s mother lived with her parents. A member of one of Iran’s nomadic tribes, as a child he had rolled into a campfire during his sleep. The burn fused the skin on the fingers of his right hand in such a way that he could not fire a gun, but this did not exempt him from military service. He was made a quartermaster in charge of distributing supplies. He found he had a knack for organization.

  His wife’s connections found him a good government job after he finished his military service, but the revolution put him out of work.

  When Farrin was a little girl, her parents would argue over dinner. ‘You’re a useless sand-lover,’ Farrin’s mother would call him. ‘I’m surprised you know how to use a fork. Because of you, I had to sell all my gold.’ It was a common refrain. Both Farrin and her father learned to continue eating their meal and just let her mother rant.

  A woman’s gold was her treasure, her protection against the rough course of the future. She’d be given pieces throughout her life, and they’d form part of her dowry. It was wealth that was solid and tangible, and could be worn to show everyone what she was worth.

  ‘North of the city the land was empty,’ Farrin’s father used to say. He delighted in telling and retelling the story of the route they took to their new wealth. ‘This land was cheap. It was rocky. It was no good for crops and not at all pretty to look at. No one wanted it. No one but me, that is!’

  Gold changed hands and the land became theirs. Farrin’s father knew nothing about construction, but he studied everything he could find at the library. More gold went for building supplies. Although the Afghan refugees’ labor was cheap, a number of them were educated and skilled. The first house went up, solid and beautiful. It sold for a good profit to a wealthy family eager to escape the overcrowding of the inner city. Farrin’s father bought more land and more building supplies, and the family became entrenched in the building business.

  ‘Are you sure your father will be okay with you being here?’ Ahmad asked.

  ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be happy to see me.’

  That much, Farrin was pretty sure she could count on. Her mother always looked a little pained when Farrin came into view. Her father generally smiled. She got out of the car.

  They were standing in what was going to be a whole new neighborhood. Some of the homes were half finished, others were just cement blocks and rebar. The air was filled with the sound of hammers. A crane lifted supplies into the air.

  Farrin spotted her father across the yard, deep in discussion with one of the workers. They were looking up at the shell of a building and didn’t notice Farrin as she walked up to them.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ she said.

  He was surprised to see her, but still he smiled – all the while looking questioningly at Ahmad.

  ‘I told him to bring me,’ Farrin said quickly. ‘I wanted to see you.’

  ‘Why come all the way out here?’ her father asked. ‘You’ll see me this evening.’

  Farrin searched her mind for an excuse. She looked around at the building supplies and all the activity – and then she had an idea. ‘I just thought it was time I learned more about what you do. Do you have time to show me around? Maybe I can go into the business when I get through with school.’

  Her father’s smile grew into a grin. ‘You absolutely can! I don’t have a lot of time today, but we can make a start. I am so happy that you are taking an interest in this!’

  For the next twenty minutes, Farrin was stuck hearing about foundations and framing and how to save money on roofing tiles. At first she kicked herself for opening her mouth, but then she started to take an actual interest. At least it was something different.

  ‘Maybe when you get older I’ll bring you into the business as a partner,’ he said. Then he winked. ‘No need to tell your mother about that part!’

  Farrin agreed, although it was a stupid secret. There was no point to it, really. Her mother wouldn’t care if she were interested in construction. Her family just liked to keep secrets.

  Farrin noticed that the worksite had gone quiet. The hammers had stopped swinging and the saws were silent. Her father noticed the quiet at the same time.

  All the men were looking at her.

  ‘Why are they staring?’ Farrin asked. ‘Is it because I’m a girl?’

  ‘It’s because you’re a child,’ her father said. ‘They miss their families.’

  ‘Then it’s good that I came.’

  ‘Not if it upsets them. I don’t want them thinking about their children. I want them thinking about my buildings. Back to work!’ he called out. ‘Let’s go! These houses won’t build themselves!’

  Farrin left her father to his work and headed toward the car. She rounded the corner – and stopped in her tracks.

  The trunk of her father’s car was open. Ahmad was handing a box full of food to one of the Afghan workers.

  Everyone froze.

  Farrin took in the situation. She knew Ahmad earned no money, so the food probably came from the storeroom at home. And she doubted very much that her mother had given him permission to take it.

  Another secret, she thought.

  ‘Need any help?’ she asked.

  They didn’t. The Afghans took the boxes of groceries and disappeared into the building site. Ahmad, ramrod straight again, opened the back door of the car. She climbed in and they drove away.

  This was an interesting turn of events. Of course she’d keep Ahmad’s secret. She’d even help him steal food from her parents’ house. They had lots. Despite the food shortages caused by the war, her parents had enough money to buy anything they wanted on the black market.

  But how could she use this information to her advantage? There must be something she could get out of the deal too.

  ‘I’ll keep your secret,’ she said.

  Ahmad didn’t respond.

  She repeated herself as the car slowed down.

  ‘There is some sort of gathering ahead,’ Ahmad told her. ‘It’s blocking the street. I’m not sure I can turn around here.’

  Farrin leaned forward. All she could see were boys, lots of them.

  ‘I’m going to see what’s going on,’ she said.

  ‘No! You must not do that! It’s much too dangerous!’

  Farrin had already opened the car door. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  She pulled her scarf close around her face and checked that none of her hair was showing. After all, she was no fool. She walked toward the crowd, her heart beating hard. This was another new thing, being out in the world alone. Well, Ahmad was with her, but he was a servant. He didn’t count.

  It was turning out to be quite a day.

  She knew without looking that Ahmad was behind her, keeping a close eye. Losing the boss’s daughter would be a sure reason to get fired!

  A small group of women, all in chadors, were standing off to the side. Farrin joined them and exchanged the traditional greetings. It was hard to hear over the boys’ chants.

  The street was full of boys. Most were around Farrin’s age, a few older. Many were younger. They all wore red martyr’s bands around their heads.

  ‘We want to die for the revolution!’ A cleric at the front was leading the cha
nt through a loudspeaker hooked up to a car.

  ‘We want to die for the revolution!’ the boys cried.

  ‘Death to our enemies!’

  ‘Death to our enemies!’

  ‘Death to Iraq!’

  ‘Death to America!’

  ‘We will be heroes in paradise!’

  Farrin tried to tune it out. It was just another basiji rally, organized by the militia force to get the boys ready to go off to the front to fight the Iraqi army. She’d seen them before. The rally wasn’t that exciting. Being out of the house without her parents was a much bigger thrill.

  ‘They look younger with every rally,’ one of the women remarked.

  ‘What are you saying?’ another woman asked the first. ‘That sounds like criticism. Are you criticizing the government? Are you saying you would rather live under Saddam Hussein?’

  ‘I’m saying that the pitch of the voices in paradise has risen very high in the last few years,’ the first woman said. ‘Two of my sons have taken their places in paradise. My youngest is in the middle of the rally today.’

  ‘Is that man following you?’ A third woman interrupted the first woman to speak to Farrin. She pointed at Ahmad, who had left the car and was watching Farrin closely. ‘I think he is. He is following you! I will get the Revolutionary Guard to arrest him.’

  ‘No!’ Farrin said. ‘He’s with me. It’s all right.’

  ‘What do you mean, he’s with you? He’s an Afghan. He’s not your brother or your uncle or your father. Who is he?’

  To be out in the world with a man who was not a relative could mean serious trouble for a girl. Farrin started to back away. Should she tell them Ahmad was a servant? Would that help or hurt?

  Instead of answering, she hurried back to the car with Ahmad at her heels. In seconds, they were both inside.

  ‘Get us out of here!’ she said.

  There was very little room to turn around. Ahmad drove up onto the sidewalk and swerved like he was in a car chase in a Hollywood movie. Farrin saw the women staring at them and then looking around for the Revolutionary Guard.

  Farrin didn’t need to tell Ahmad to drive fast. She checked the rear window as they sped away. No one was following them.

  ‘Maybe one of these days I’ll have a quick look around the shops after school,’ she said. ‘But perhaps you had better stay in the car when I do.’

  There was silence from the front seat as Ahmad considered his options.

  Then he said, as Farrin knew he would, ‘Yes, Miss Farrin.’

  Pleased with herself, Farrin leaned back against the seat.

  A pact had been made.

  FOUR

  THE PARTY WAS already underway.

  Farrin could tell from the pile of shoes inside the front door that some of the guests had arrived. For now, all the shoes belonged to her mother’s women friends. Their husbands would join them later. By the time Iraq started the evening’s bombing, the house would be full of people celebrating the end of the world with a stiff drink and a bit of fun.

  ‘Your mother wants to see you.’

  Ada relayed the message as soon as Farrin entered the house.

  ‘How mad is she?’

  Instead of answering, Ada asked, ‘How late are you?’

  ‘I’ll tell her it was my father’s fault.’

  ‘That will work.’ Ada had been their housekeeper as long as Farrin could remember. She had witnessed even more family arguments than Farrin.

  Farrin headed to the kitchen. From there, she would be able to look into the inner room, and gauge her mother’s mood without being seen.

  Farrin’s house had a formal front room, where her father saw business colleagues and where the family’s public image matched the spirit of the revolution. Stiff, formal furniture lined the walls underneath photos of the Ayatollah.

  The front room led directly to the kitchen. Farrin pushed open the heavy soundproof door. Inside, the cook and other servants were scurrying around, preparing food for the party.

  The kitchen had a pass-through window into the room behind it. Even though the window’s shutter was closed, Farrin could hear the laughing voices and the clinking of tea glasses.

  Later, she knew, the laughter would be supplemented with music, and the tea would be exchanged for something stronger.

  Ever since Saddam Hussein had begun to bomb Tehran, Farrin’s parents and their friends engaged in an almost-nightly movable party. It shifted from house to house, and as the bombing got rougher, the drinking got heavier.

  Although she hated the people who attended the parties, Farrin preferred it when they came to her house, since her parents refused to let her stay home when they went to a party elsewhere. It was almost impossible to find a place to hide out at someone else’s home. The adults were always sticking their nose into her business.

  ‘What are you reading?’ ‘What are you writing? School work? Why not see if we are still alive in the morning before you do your homework!’ and ‘Why are you sitting all the way over here by yourself when the party is in the other room?’

  When her parents hosted the celebration, it was easier to hide from all the guests. As long as no one saw her, no one thought of her. The trick was to get upstairs without being noticed.

  Her evening would be ruined if she joined her mother and the other women. But if she didn’t check in with her mother as directed, she’d be in trouble.

  Farrin chose trouble over a ruined evening. She put some bread, fruit, cheese, and pastries on a plate, then left the kitchen the way she’d come in and headed up the stairs to her bedroom.

  Farrin’s house was the fifth they had lived in since the revolution. To save rent, her father often moved the family into the new homes he built. They would live there while the finishing touches were added. Since the family already had servants and security guards, her father never had to pay for new ones to take care of an empty house.

  When her family moved into this one, the nicest one yet, Farrin’s mother put her foot down and declared she was done with moving.

  ‘My gold paid for all this,’ she declared. ‘This is where we will stay.’

  After she declared she liked it so much, she went about demanding changes, so many that the skilled laborers couldn’t keep up with their other work. This house, like the others, had seen many fights. Farrin tried to stay out of it, since none of the fights brought her any advantage.

  It was a relief to open the door of her bedroom, walk inside, then close the door behind her.

  ‘A closed door,’ Farrin said out loud. ‘It’s the best thing.’

  Especially at the end of a very long day.

  Farrin’s bedroom was not to her taste. Her mother had designed it to look like it came out of an American magazine called Good Housekeeping.

  ‘You’re too young to know what your taste is,’ her mother told her when Farrin objected to the fabric choices and paint colors her mother chose. The room looked almost exactly like the picture clipped from the magazine, with pinks and lemon yellows that might have suited a child half Farrin’s age. The bookshelves held her mother’s collection of international dolls, which Farrin never played with, as well as a wide variety of books in Persian and in English. The English books came from street vendors who sold private collections from pavement stalls. Most of the English bookstores in Tehran had been closed since the revolution.

  Farrin recoiled a bit every time she walked into the room. It felt as if she were trespassing on the sanctuary of the child her mother had wished for. ‘But it has a door,’ she reminded herself. ‘A door that closes.’

  She hung her manteau on the hook, dropped her book bag on her bed, and put the plate of food down on her desk. Before flopping down in her easy chair, she took one of the videos off her bookshelf and popped it into the VCR, pressing Play and turning on the television set. The opening music of The Night Stalker was the perfect antidote to school and the stress of the day.

  This was one of her favorite episodes
, about a vampire let loose in Los Angeles. She focused on the grainy video and felt herself begin to relax.

  Videos, music, magazines, and books were all hit and miss in revolutionary Tehran. Many things were forbidden, declared decadent and immodest but available to those with enough money. Farrin didn’t know how it worked – who her father contacted or how he knew that person was on their side and would not report them to the Revolutionary Guard. All she knew was that, every so often, a man with a large briefcase would come to their house and leave them with forbidden items. And if she thought to tell her dad what she wanted – like books of ghost stories and scary movies – eventually the Briefcase Man would bring them.

  She gave her eyes a rest from the fuzzy screen and turned to her bookshelves. Her gaze shifted from her collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories to Dracula, Frankenstein, and Great American Ghost Stories.

  She hated that Principal Kobra had seen her demon story. How could a woman like that know anything about demons? Or about stories? Did she even have dreams? Principal Kobra was all hard edges and stern looks. Her imagination probably didn’t extend beyond whatever torture she wanted to inflict on her students.

  Farrin remembered the boys from the basiji rally. An idea came to her, something about Iranian demons on a battlefield. She grabbed her notebook from her book bag. How to write it? The idea was brilliant, she was sure about that, but it was just at the edge of her brain. In another second it would be sitting right where she could get at it and define it.

  At that moment, of course, her mother burst into her room.

  Farrin’s mother was tall and striking, with the sort of ageless beauty and grace usually reserved for Hollywood stars and royal families. She was dressed in silks and beads, high heels and high hair. At least, Farrin assumed she was. She kept her eyes on her notebook and did not look up at the sound of the door slamming into the wall.

  ‘You have the manners of a peasant.’

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ Farrin said. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Ada told you to see me as soon as you came home.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t get that message.’